


a voice keeps on whispering

by orphan_account



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, False Pregnancy, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-26 11:37:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12058194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: This is the thing:Lynn makes it out alive. Blake doesn’t.It’s that simple—except that it isn’t.





	a voice keeps on whispering

**Author's Note:**

> the adventures of stanning lynn & creating more content for her continue.
> 
> sorry for any typos.
> 
> title from [simple death by chelsea wolfe.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJjaXtniw8o)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the thing:

Lynn makes it out alive. Blake doesn’t.

It’s that simple—except that it isn’t.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No one is listening to her. They’re not hearing a fucking word she’s saying.

She’s been in the hospital for thirty hours now, and conscious for about four. The doctors say she was found limping out of a burnt-out town, bleeding and alone. They say there was a fire—and a destabilization within the old mines near there, to boot—nothing they could do for the locals or anyone else unlucky enough to be caught in such a bizarre event. It’s bizarre, they tell her, because none of her injuries or anything she’s exhibiting implicates she escaped a burning blaze: they don’t say it, but she knows they mean that they know something horribly _wrong_ happened.

“My husband,” she repeats through gritted teeth, “Blake. Is anyone looking for him? Is—”

“Ma’am,” one of the doctors holds up a hand, silencing her, though it only succeeds in making her begin to seethe. “No one else was found alive. A body that…matches the description of your h—”

“No,” she snaps, “he made it. Blake fucking made it. And the baby—I saw them.”

The doctor looks like he’s a suppressing a sigh. “Ma’am, the nurses told me they informed you,” he says, not unkindly, “while there are signs of trauma, there are no physical or chemical signs of there being a pregnancy, as far as we can tell.”

“Bullshit,” she says, and tells them to get out of her room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Her family comes and visits; some of her coworkers drop in to give her flowers and gift baskets; but nothing changes. The mud is cleaned from her wounds; the dried blood is scrubbed away; her bruised ribs are slowly but surely healing; the nasty-looking bloody abrasions from the restraints the doctors keep telling the police not to ask her about are beginning to scab over. Physically, things are going fine, but Lynn hasn’t slept since she woke up in a sterilized room thinking that hell was going to a hospital.

A day or so afterwards, the detectives come in and ask her questions. By then, she’s had enough time to at least push out every detail she can recall from the back of her mind: she realizes before she opens her mouth that they won’t believe her if she tells them what she’s seen. They won’t believe her about the cultists, the heretics, or the baby she swore she felt grow inside her over the course of a single night. They won’t believe her when she insists that she saw Blake holding their daughter—the _antichrist,_ for fuck’s sake—in his arms as her eyes closed for what she thought was the last time.

So she tells them this:

She doesn’t remember much. The details are fuzzy. She _does_ , however, tell them about Val: covered in mud, naked, crowned in thorns—awaiting the birth of her baby. Tall, wiry, fast, blonde—it’s all she can give them. She gives them something to chew on, knowing that the false lead she gave them will never leave anywhere.

And besides—she’s got the funny feeling that someone is watching her.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day, she overhears one of the doctors speaking to the detectives: they say the stress of her suspected kidnapping and torture resulted in a break—her mind began filling itself with things in order to deal with (or, perhaps, avoid) what was really going on. It’s bullshit, but if they heard what she has to say, they’d cart her off and she would probably never be heard from again.

There’s a nurse who makes her think so. Stocky, dark-haired, looks like he doesn’t have a bedside manner worth his life—comes in from time to time to check on her IV fluids, making sure she’s hydrated. Her body grows tense when he’s near her, and the feeling doesn’t subside when he leaves—only when she’s left alone for the night.

In Temple Gate, everyone seemed to hear everything.

Lynn wasn’t so sure she could doubt that same couldn’t be said for this place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They find Blake’s body two days later. Lynn doesn’t cry when she hears the news. She says, “I can’t talk about it,” and turns to stone. She stares out the window with her arms crossed over her chest and grits her teeth. It isn’t right— _it can’t be right_ —

“Jesus fucking _Christ_ ,” Lynn says, just as her suspicious nurse leaves her room, and holds her head in her hands.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

That night, she sneaks out of her room.

Well—that’s putting it generously. Nurses who check on her and other patients who’ve been lucky enough to spot her nod and wave, and Lynn goes along with it. Heads to the nurses’ station. Asks after a man with the name tag _Beau_.

She is, after all, a reporter—and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t at least _ask_ so she can get some proper sleep.

The nurse at the desk tells her that there’s no one by that name—and there are no male nurses currently working her wing at this hour.

“Must’ve been a dream,” Lynn says by way of excuse, and turns back towards her room.

There’s only one thing left for her to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the morning, they find her hospital room empty.

They search the hospital, but it’s too late: she’s long gone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
